✰ Wish Granted: onkeyjongmintae
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Your wish is now granted! ✰ Review ✰
Granted By: macchiato-
Title: You Saw Me!
Author: onkeyjongmintae
Title
First thing first, I want you to know that a title is one of those aspects that you need to pay attention on the most. A title needs to be captivating and gripping all at once. Besides that, a title needs to be fairly related to the overall plotline. You have connected your title with the story in an obvious way (which is a good thing, I must add) but unfortunately, ‘You Saw Me!’ doesn’t have the appeal to grip the readers’ interest. Let’s assume that you’re targeting SHINee fans as your readers. Now, how many of them do you think will be interested enough to click on your story if they were to scroll down through the tags? Allow me to be blunt: if I were one of them, I wouldn’t even set a glance on it. Why? Because to some people, simple titles like yours aren’t promising and we want that guarantee of worth-reading stories from the title. We want it to attract us, to keep us from walking away. Yours, though, did not. However, you have done a good job with the punctuation and capitalizations. Make sure to prove me wrong by setting up a better (somewhat a more captivating and complicated yet still related) title on your future projects.
Foreword/Description
If a book sells itself through its title and short summary or testimonials on the back cover, a fanfiction sells itself through its title and foreword/description. You need to have a description that has the ability to enhance your readers’ curiosity in order to ‘sell’ your story. Frankly saying, I was being judgmental when I reached your description and foreword (yes, kill me, I am such a judgmental person). I knew by then that your story will hold a terribly simple plot with some cliché touches and the fact that I thought that way after I read your description and foreword is not a good thing.
A description is supposed to be your selling point. A foreword is supposed to support the latter. Your description is not bad in general, but it’s not excellent either. It gives off an impression that the story is going to be simple and empty. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing. A lot of people tend to write cliché plots in order to approach a realistic and believable story line. However, my dear, that’s not the right choice (as for me personally). I prefer to dig more into my creativity to develop a cliché plot and turn it into something rather surprising. I have a theory in mind that nothing is ever cliché if you try to approach it in a different way. Your description tells that you are not running on that particular approach, and since first impression is always important, I was thrown out of the window thinking that I wouldn’t be amused by your story. This is what I mean by being judgmental (but business is business and if your description does not pull me in enough, why would I ‘buy’ the entire story?)
Past that, why don’t you move the author’s notes and stuff right down to your foreword? Well this is technical so you don’t really have to take this seriously, but it would have been better to leave the description as it is and move the rest onto the foreword where it should have been put originally.
Appearance
Continuing from the above: formatting. First of all, different font colors distract people. Second: wide spaces after paragraph distract them as well. I’m not saying this so that you’ll remove the entire formatting; I’m just stating my opinions out loud, and since it’s my mere opinion, you don’t really have to pick this up into your consideration. I like the font size well enough though.
Plot
I know I was being irresponsibly rude and harsh on the previous sections (and I sincerely apologize for that; it’s just how I utter my opinions) but this is where the real rant starts. One thing that you need to know is that you have a good plotline. You have a decent plot and a proper twist. You have a strong moral and you could actually make this story intriguing if you have written it more … strongly.
Let us first break it down. I totally did not see the resolution coming. The fact that Jinki killed himself after seeing the main female character without her mask was not something that I had expected. I am saying that you have a very good plot turn, but why, my dear, did I think it was ridiculous?
I had a few seconds of breakdown when I reached the ending because damn that was supposed to be a great twist. When I thought that the girl and Jinki would end up being together, you knocked me off by ending it that way but at the same time, you threw me off the bridge because sadly, you did not have a full grasp on it. In other words, your ending is not strong enough. Sure, it holds realistic morals and meaningful messages, but the approach is an important thing to be paid attention on, too. When you’re not strongly conveying the messages you’re trying to deliver, your readers won’t receive the words as a whole. I did not receive the words as a whole. I did not feel the tension. I did not feel the characters (of which I will discuss on the upcoming section). I did not feel the sympathy, the irony. I did not feel anything and the fact that I was being like that proves that your plot is not strong enough. I know that you want to write a realistic drabble with no complicatedness and whatnot, but even simple plot like this needs to be strong and powerful in order to pull the readers in entirely. You do have the potential to be a great writer (and this isn’t bull I’m telling you), you just need to dig more into a few things and improve yourself.
Grammar
Instead of ranting over your grammars, I’m just going to elaborate on my opinions about the style of your writing. Beforehand, I just want to tell you that in term of fluency, you are already good enough. A few mistakes were found here and there but with a little proofreading and grammar checking, you’ll do just great.
Now, when I told you I was going to talk about your writing style, I was referring to the way you write this oneshot in a way we call ‘simplistic’. I have come across this writing style quite a few times now but I still can’t get over it, really. You might think that writing styles are relatively up to the readers’ opinions and if you really do, then I couldn’t agree more. I personally prefer writers who write with a touch of complicatedness, with metaphors, with dramatic linking of words and wide range of vocabularies. You are not one of those writers, so the style of your writing is not what I genuinely favor. However, that is not what I want to rant about and I can guarantee that I did not include that on the judging.
I tried to be objective and told myself that the genre of this story is romantic-comedy and that it’s okay to have such writing style but in term of professionalism, I don’t think it is okay (and as a reviewer I just have to point this out). Firstly, never use symbols on your writing. If you want to say , just say , If you want to say , say it, not shizz. Same goes with numbers. You can just write ten A.M instead of 10 A.M. Secondly, Korean terms are something you should avoid. There aren’t many Korean terms that you used on the story and I know that people come across different opinions, but I personally think that putting Korean terminologies in your oneshot would do you no good. Some people might not understand or think that it isn’t professional but you don’t really have to worry about this since you were just using a few. I just can’t leave this statement out, forgive me.
Also, try not to write ‘OMG’ and replace it appropriately with Oh My God instead (we are talking about professionalism right here). Don’t overwhelm your words by repeating alphabets, too. A simple ‘yeah’ (not ‘yeaaahhh’) would do.
Flow
Tension. Tension is another important thing. I’ve made it clear in the Plot section that you did not manage to build the proper tension on the entire story and sadly it makes the flow a little bit too weak. The pace was okay. I like the way you started on the middle and not on how the two characters first knew each other. However, as the story went by, the tension was not concurrently built and it was such a waste because you could have created a decent flow but you didn’t. Props to you for not including unnecessary events onto the story, though. Some writers tend to put unrelated events even onto drabbles but you’re not one of them so good job.
Characterization
I hate to repeat this every time I write a review but I need you to underline that characters hold very important and essential roles on a story. If you can bring your characters alive and let them grip your readers’ mind, there’s nothing else you need to worry about. Now, in this very oneshot, you mentioned merely two characters: the main female character and Lee Jinki. I can somewhat draw the main characters’ personality but in term of her feelings, I am completely clueless. I cannot relate to her the way I am supposed to (because really, you have to make your readers be able to relate to your characters). Jinki, too, isn’t relatable. I know that Jinki is a only a supporting character and that it’s difficult to draw his feelings since you’re writing from the first point of view, but it would be better if you have revealed it a bit. I couldn’t relate to Jinki as to why he killed himself (I know it’s because the female character is not like what he expected but back to my first point: it means it’s not strong enough).
What I am trying to say here is that on your next project, you should put more effort in developing your characters. The key is to make them realistic (which you have done good) and relatable at the same time. Hypnotize your readers and make them believe that they’re on your characters’ shoes. That way, the plot that I said was weak could appear stronger and make the story even more intriguing. Show some backgrounds and convey your characters’ feeling, that’s another key.
Comments/Enjoyment
I sincerely apologize for taking too long to finish this review. If it happens to discourage and offend you, I can only hope that it enlightens you in any way possible as well. I know that I was being too harsh and blunt upon writing this review but I do believe that honest opinions are what we writers need the most to make improvements. Like I’ve said before, you have the potentials to be a great writer so never stop writing and try to improve what you need to improve. Feel free to leave me any feedback and once again if I hurt you with my words, I sincerely apologize. Don’t forget to credit the shop and request again whenever you want. Have a nice day!
Please comment when you've seen this. Hope this helped you!
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